I bring to you today another Pinterest discovery. Moon dough. It is mouldable flour that keeps your kiddies entertained for ages. Best thing is it is dead easy to make and easy to begin with basics from your kitchen! My little guy LOVED this and it encourages sensory play and creativity so winning all round.

This is primarily an outdoor activity as it can get a little messy, but if done correctly can also be an indoor activity as the flour is easy to clean up.

What you will need:

4 cups Flour (I used plain flour)

Sunflower Oil (roughly 1 cup)

A whisk or a fork to mix

A container to put the moon dough in after for storage.

A tray to have the moon dough in while playing (i used a plastic basin which was $4 from the hardware store)

Items for the child to use (such as cups or small containers etc) while playing.

Ok to make the moon dough all you do is put your 4 cups of flour into a large mixing bowl and then slowly pour in the oil. Now nearly every recipe I found on the net said one cup of baby oil and I was reluctant in all honesty to use baby oil in the event this was accidentally ingested. So I substituted Sunflower Oil for Baby oil. The sunflower oil was very light and doesn’t seem to stain. So I poured in my cup and mixed it into the flour using my hands. One cup wasn’t quite enough to make the flour mouldable so I just poured in a few more small amounts till I got the moulding consistency.

That is it! I told you it was easy.

For something a little different/special you can add food colouring to the mixture and make coloured moon dough. I have not tried this yet myself but sounds kinda cool.

Pour the mixed flour into a tray (preferably outside) and give your toddler some containers to play with and let them have at it. Several websites stated they used kitty litter trays as being perfect for this activity but as we actually have cats who use a kitty litter tray I was reluctant to use one, in case he decided the used cat litter tray would make a good tray to play with.

Also you can use simple cups, spoons and containers from the cupboard or special sand castle building type containers. You really can use anything. You could also (with a big enough tray) create scenes to be played with like a small city and put roads in for cars to drive on. Or make cupcakes with cupcake holders.

Voila painting fun with out the mess! This was a win for use, my little guy had heaps of fun doing this.

You can spice it up or keep it interesting by using a computer stylus (or make a make shift one with q-tips) your child can write or draw in the paint. Also use cookie cutter shapes to do shapes in the pain. I have seen around pinterest people putting glitter in the bags as well or insert a piece of card board into the bag if you want to try an preserve the art work.

Hope you have as much fun as we did with this particular easy peasy craft activity!

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I like thousands of others have discovered Pinterest. So I thought I would blog about some of the things I had found while on pinterest, and have tried.

So I am starting with the activity called Paper City.It is pretty simple, you print out the templates, cut them out and stand them up. Voila instant city to entertain your little one. There were lots of templates to choose from; a plain city scape, Sydney Harbour Bridge and Luna Fun Park, plus Paris. Look at the beautiful photographs below of how it should look when complete.

I saw this and thought this would be something easy I could do. Well I should have known better really. Now something you need to know about me, I have ZERO craft skill. In fact if it is possible I would be in the negative figures when it comes to skill level. Despite heaps of enthusiasm I just can’t do even the simplest crafts. I am pretty sure my home ec/arts teachers used to cringe when I walked in the room as I would break sewing needles, burn food, end up with paint virtually every where but my canvas and wood work. And finally I think my wood works teacher actually cried when I showed him my spice rack. So based on that you are probably now thinking this ended in an epic fail.

Well you would be close. Firstly my finished folded standing city did not look anywhere near as lovely as those in the photographs posted on Made by Joels website. But hey it was my first attempt and I was pretty proud of my efforts (it resembled what it was supposed to look like and I was impressed with that, for me it is a huge win lol).

Secondly this activity is relatively disaster proof. You just need thick paper (or thing cardboard), a printer, scissors and about 20 minutes to print, cut and fold. One of the problems I had is that i had ceiling fans in my house, so they easily blew over in the gale force produced by my fans going at full title. So I had to modify the template a teeny tiny bit and make a little stand out of cardboard to make it stand for longer then 5 seconds.

Now for the final test drive, is it a win for my toddler to play with? Yes! little monkey liked it. He happily drove his toy cars in front of the buildings. The he turned into Godzilla and knocked everything over. All up an hour of distraction and quiet time for me. Winning all round.

So for a free easy game to entertain your child this would be hard to pass up. My little one is 2 and so was probably a little too young to fully appreciate it but I think older children will enjoy it much more.

Well I hope you liked this post as they will become semi regular as I trial different stuff I find on Pinterest.

If you have any simple crafts I could take a stab at please feel free to leave suggestions in the comments section.

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About Tales From The Toybox.

Tales From The Toybox is a blog about being a parent and navigating the mine field that is parenting young children. Sometimes funny, sometimes serious, we are just a group of mum's finding our way through parenthood.

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